http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/t...on=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article
NYT had a follow up article yesterday about the 'secret campaign' at Amazon:
More at the link.
Amazon has begun discouraging customers from buying books by Malcolm Gladwell, Stephen Colbert, J. D. Salinger and other popular writers, a flexing of its muscle as a battle with a publisher spills into the open.
The Internet retailer, which controls more than a third of the book trade in the United States, is marking many books published by Hachette Book Group as not available for at least two or three weeks.
A Hachette spokeswoman said on Thursday that the publisher was striving to keep Amazon supplied but that the Internet giant was delaying shipments for reasons of their own. Hachette is one of the largest New York houses, publishing under the Little, Brown and Grand Central imprints, among many others.
The affected books are a mixture of new and old. A just-published memoir, Everybodys Got Something, by the Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts, is taking as long as three weeks to ship, customers were told. So is Stephen Colberts America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Werent.
James Pattersons Alex Cross, Run published at the end of February, is taking as much as five weeks. NYPD Red, by Mr. Patterson and Marshall Karp, will take as much as three weeks. Other Hachette books by the prolific Mr. Patterson are readily available, however.
Generally, most popular books are available from Amazon within two days. An Amazon spokesman declined to comment.
Publishers say the bookseller, whose shares have tumbled 25 percent this year as investors itch for profits, is determined to squeeze as much margin out of its suppliers as possible.
We have been asked legitimate questions about why many of our books are at present marked out of stock with relatively long estimated shipping times on the Amazon website, in contrast to immediate availability on other websites and in stores, said Sophie Cottrell, a Hachette spokeswoman. We are satisfying all Amazons orders promptly.
But, she added, Amazon is holding minimal stock and restocking some of Hachettes books slowly, causing available 2-4 weeks messages.
For at least a decade, Amazon has not been shy about throwing its weight around with publishers, demanding bigger discounts and more time to pay its bills. When a publisher balked, it would withdraw the houses titles from its recommendation algorithms.
Typically, it was about 30 days before theyd come back and say, Ouch, how do we make this work? an Amazon buyer told the journalist Brad Stone in his book about the company, The Everything Store.
Sometimes, though, more action was needed. The bookseller pulled all the buy buttons for Macmillan books in 2010 in a dispute over e-book pricing. Two years later, Amazon was negotiating for a higher discount with the distributor Independent Publishers Group. They decided they wanted me to change my terms, the IPG president, Mark Suchomel, said at the time. It wasnt reasonable. Theres only so far we can go.
Amazon promptly removed more than 4,000 IPG e-books from its site. After lengthy and quiet negotiations, the parties came to terms and the books were restored.
NYT had a follow up article yesterday about the 'secret campaign' at Amazon:
The worlds biggest bookstore is a bit smaller these days.
Amazons secret campaign to discourage customers from buying books by Hachette, one of the big New York publishers, burst into the open on Friday.
The uneasy relationship between the retailer and the writing community, which needs Amazon but fears its power, immediately soured as authors took to Twitter to denounce what they saw as bullying.
Among Amazons tactics against Hachette, some of which it has been employing for months, are charging more for its books and suggesting that readers might enjoy instead a book from another author. If customers for some reason persist and buy a Hachette book anyway, Amazon is saying it will take weeks to deliver it.
The scorched-earth tactics arose out of failed contract negotiations. Amazon was seeking better terms, Hachette was balking, so Amazon began cutting it off. Writers from Malcolm Gladwell to J. D. Salinger are affected, although some Hachette authors were unscathed.
On both sides, the stakes are high. Amazon controls about a third of the book business, which means big publishers cannot live without it. But Amazon risks alienating readers as well as authors, and undermining its carefully wrought image as the consumers friend.
What we are seeing is a classic case of muscle-flexing, said Andrew Rhomberg, founder of Jellybooks, an e-book discovery site. Kind of like Vladimir Putin mobilizing his troops along the Ukrainian border.
As accusations flew, the two antagonists kept a low profile. Hachette stressed it was shipping orders promptly and yet Amazon was still showing the books as being unavailable. Amazon, as usual, declined to say anything at all.
The retailer appeared to be using three main tactics in its efforts against Hachette, which owns Grand Central Publishing, Orbit and Little, Brown as well as many other imprints.
One is simply warning that books will take a long time to show up. Amazon has been relentlessly expanding its delivery ambitions, and just this week announced Sunday deliveries in 15 more cities, including Austin, Tex., and New Orleans. Its two-day free shipping program has more than 20 million members.
But if a reader wants a Malcolm Gladwell book from Amazon, Outliers, The Tipping Point, Blink and What the Dog Saw were all listed as taking two to three weeks. A Spanish edition from another publisher was available immediately.
Then there is the question of price. Outliers was selling Friday for $15.29, a mere 10 percent discount. On Barnes & Noble, the book was $12.74.
With some Hachette authors, Amazon seemed to be discouraging buyers in other ways. On the top of the page for Jeffery Deavers forthcoming novel The Skin Collector, Amazon suggested that the prospective customer buy other novels entirely.
Similar items at a lower price, it said, were novels by Lee Child and John Sandford.
Hachette authors were fuming.
Like all repressive regimes, Amazon wants to completely control your access to books, Sherman Alexie said in a Twitter post.
Given AMZNs near-monopoly position I think its an antitrust violation, but the U.S. antitrust regulators are broken, Charlie Stross said, also on Twitter.
With the demise of the Borders chain, the struggles of Barnes & Noble, and the ever-precarious position of the few remaining independent stores, authors of all types have grown to depend on Amazon. The Hachette author Marla Heller, who wrote The Dash Diet Weight Loss Solution, said Amazons actions dramatically impacted her sales.
On March 19, she said, Amazon raised the price of her book by $8. Then it ran a banner recommending other less expensive diet books.
Then they let my book go out of stock, she wrote in an email. When this problem started, my book was ranked in the top 300 on Amazon. It has since dropped to as low as the top 3,000. While this may be a dispute between an Internet giant and a major publisher, it is the authors who will pay the price. She included a chart of her sales, which were flat.
An Amazon spokesman did not respond to a message about Ms. Hellers complaints. Her book is listed as available with a two- to three-week delay. The discount is 10 percent. The banner promoting other books, however, had disappeared, at least for the moment.
The Authors Guild said it had received about 15 complaints Friday from Hachette authors involving more than 150 titles.
If youre a monopolist, you get to be a bully, said Richard Russo, the Pulitzer-winning novelist and Authors Guild vice president. Maybe you feel immune. Still, he added that he was surprised that Amazon would want one more bad story about its practices.
Michael J. Sullivan is not sure whom to blame. When the science fiction writer saw in March that his books were suddenly unavailable, he called Amazon, which said Hachette was not shipping the books. Hachette told Mr. Sullivan it was. He does not know whom to believe but knows this: Its the little guys who pay the price.
Amazon stopped discounting his novels entirely two months ago. To me, this is even worse than the slow shipping aspect, Mr. Sullivan said.
More at the link.
